In the food service industry, foods are often served on buffet tables designed to maintain desired temperatures for cold or hot foods. The desired temperature maintenance is provided by cold air or hot steam (and/or cold or hot water) within the chamber of a steam table. Such chamber, of course, is immediately beneath the top wall of the steam table, and the top wall has openings to receive special food-serving pans such that the walls of the pan (sidewalls and bottom wall) are fully exposed to the chamber when the pan is in place on the steam table.
Steam-table pans have a lip-portion protruding outwardly from the upper edges of the sidewalls, and when the pan is in position on the steam table, it is supported by the engagement of its lip-portion with the top of the steam-table top wall. Thus, the food in the pan is kept at the desired temperature (or, more specifically, within a desired temperature range, by the fluid (air, steam and/or liquid water) in contact with the pan. Of course, it is important that the pan or pans on the steam table sufficiently close the chamber to prevent undesired heat losses or gains. The “seal” between the pan and the table top is provided by the contact of the lip-portion of the pan with the top of the steam table.
In use, steam-table pans need to be repeatedly removed from the steam table for refilling, replacement, cleaning and other reasons. Steam-table pan configurations have made it difficult to remove the pans from steam tables. Typically, lifting is accomplished by wedging a finger, utensil or other tool under the lip-portion to begin lifting the pan. Such actions may be rather dangerous to a person trying to lift the pan from the table since uncontrolled escape of steam may burn the person's hand. It is rather common practice for personnel to attempt to facilitate this initial lifting step by intentionally and permanently deforming the lip-portion in one or more places to provide a gripping place or to facilitate a wedging step. Such lip deformation breaks the “seal” between the pan and the table top, which results in harmful heat losses or gains. This can greatly decrease steam-table efficiency by raising the use of power for maintaining the desired temperature, not to mention the fact that the appearance of the pan is ruined. There is a need for a steam-table pan which is easily removable from the steam table and which, when the pan is in place, reliably closes the chamber to prevent energy inefficiency throughout the life of the pan.
These problems are so longstanding and commonplace that some inventive efforts have been made to deal with such problems. One of the existing solutions to the problem of raising a pan out of the steam table involves a “ramping” configuration which involves a rather drastic change in pan geometry which allows a pushing or pulling action on the inside surface of a pan sidewall against the edge of a steam-table opening to cause some initial raising of the pan, thereby to facilitate lifting and removal.
Such “ramping” pans, which are understandably quite expensive, have a number of disadvantages stemming from their unusual configurations.
Among the problems are a resulting loss in pail capacity because of the more-inward nature of the configuration due to the ramping features. Also, the ramping configuration is such that it may increase the possibility of spilling pan contents due to the less-vertical nature of the pan sidewalls near the lip-portion. Furthermore, the non-standard shapes of such “ramping” pans mean that they are not readily stacked with users' existing inventories of steam-table pans of typical configurations. A further disadvantage of such “ramping” pans is that because of their non-typical configurations they typically require that accessories used with steam-table pans, such as wire grates, false bottoms and even some utensils, cannot be of standard shapes and sizes. For example, wire grates and false bottoms may have to be smaller than standard wire grates and false bottoms; and serving scoops may require unusual, non-standard shapes because scoops of standard round-edge shapes will not completely engage with bottom and side corners of the pans. The requirement of special accessories tends to significantly increase the total cost to an institution of using such “ramping” pans.
Still another problem is that the pushing or pulling action on the inside surfaces of such “ramping” pans typically involves manual contact with wall surfaces which are or have been exposed to food. This may raise concerns related to sanitation, whether or not personnel use gloves, and also creates finger/glove cleanliness issues. Also related to cleanliness is the fact that such “ramping” pans, with their significantly increased surface irregularities, are more difficult to wash. Wiping action on inside surfaces must give additional attention to such irregularities in order to avoid food residues from remaining after washing operations.
Thus, there is a need for a steam-table pan which provides easy removability from the steam table without giving rise to aforementioned problems associated with pans having the aforementioned “ramping” features.
Another problem with certain steam-table pans of the prior art arises because such pans frequently moved around for different purposes in fast-moving institutional kitchen operations. Such movements and handling on many occasions can result in pans dropping and receiving significant impact damage on their lip-portions. In addition, in kitchen storage areas various heavy objects may fall on steam-table pans causing deformation of the lip-portions. Any such deformations tend to be permanent, and cause the same problems as the intentional lip-portion distortions mentioned above. Pan deformation obviously limits useful pan life, giving rise to replacement costs. Thus, it is highly desirable to have long-lasting, sturdy pan construction. There is a need in the industry for steam-table pans with improved edge-portion strength.
As is seen from the above reference to deformation caused by unintentional dropping or banging about of steam-table pans, deformation of pan edge portions is a significant problem in the field of steam-table pans. Steam-table pans, although typically formed of drawn metal sheet such as 22-gauge or even 20-gauge steel, have edge portions that are too easily deformed. There is a need in the steam-table industry for pans with much greater resistance to edge deformation.
In summary, there is a need for an improved steam-table pan which is easily liftable from steam tables and which overcomes all of the aforementioned problems.